


In the Year 2023

by Ranowa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, Gen, Let Them Hug DAMN IT, Loki (Marvel) Lives, Self-Indulgent, it's just a self-indulgent hug that's all it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 18:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19156189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: When Dr. Strange told Wong to bring everyone, he meanteveryone.





	In the Year 2023

**Author's Note:**

> Because Loki walked back in at the portal scene with everyone else shut the fuck up yes he did I saw him he was there and this happened right on screen what are you talking about it didn't
> 
> (first MCU fic, my heart and soul are crushed by Endgame and I need closure, yada yada)

 

The first time Thor hears the whisper, he's quite sure he's hearing things.

It wouldn't have been the first time, in these five years. And all right, perhaps he is sober, now, but he's taken so many blows around the head it feels almost like the same thing. The stomach-swooping nausea, the dizzy tilt to the world. The stumble under his feet, the _holy shit- I'm gonna fall_ is utterly identical to seven drinks too many at the tavern. He is a god, not a human, but he's also just been smacked around by a giant purple weirdo, and now could actually really use that drink, so- ahem. Yeah.

Quite sure he's hearing things.

The second time he hears it, it's just a bit louder, and it's as he is picking his way over a shattered crevice that is scorched and still smoking, occupied by two huddled humans who do not need his help. This time, this time, Thor narrows his eyes- eye? After all this time, he's still not sure- and he lets himself come to a stop.

No.

It is not possible.

He is hearing things, and that is quite all right, because as long as he accepts _he is hearing things,_ and does not let himself hope-

No.

He will not hope.

He will _**not**_ hope.

Thor steels himself, swallowing the lump in his throat that might be closer to a boulder trying to crush his heart, and rounds another smoking corner.

He finds yet another batch of huddled humans, struggling, shellshocked, healing, weak on the battlefield, and- there. There: a familiar face! Levitating next to them to the little batch of humans is the baffling human wizard Mister Doctor Strange. Dirty and bleeding from the same battle that scars them all, his strangely friendly cape flapping underneath him to keep him aloft, and he levitates there so that, with hands that tremble and shake, he may stitch a bleeding wound in a human's head.

Huh. So perhaps he is a real doctor, after all.

...

That wizard, Thor remembers. Stephen Strange. Human doctor; human magician, Sorcerer Supreme. Whatever that means. Thor knows his face like he knows so many others, as just that, a picture of a face, scrolling by still frame and flickering in an army of millions: he'd died in the Snap.

And now, he's here.

Alive.

_And he is not the only one._

A fragile, wavering flame of hope flickers alive in his chest, and once its fire is caught, he can not bear to put it out. He is not the only one, and there is still a voice whispering in his head, and- perhaps of the gravest importance of all- he is one who had helped bring all these warriors here. He knows who is alive and who is not. And perhaps-

Thor takes a wavering step closer, on legs that still feel numb and boots that slide ankle deep into the soot and smoldering wreckage around. "Wizard," he asks, reaching out, "did you by chance see-"

Strange circles his hand, spelling out his customary fiery portal, and before there is time for more words than that his cloak flutters, and he vanishes straight through it.

"-...my brother."

All things considered, he's pretty sure he liked it better when humans didn't have magic.

He takes another breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and continues on.

_"Thor. Oh, Thooooor. Are you here, Thor? Am I talking to myself? Really, if I'm not, talk back, please- this is beginning to get quite uncomfortable-"_

"Shut up, Loki," he mutters, and kicks a piece of rubbish so heavy it thunks down like thunder, and craters into the dirt beside.

_"Oh, THOR."_

He ignores his brother's sing-song shouting in his head, and trudges on.

There are many others that he passes that he vaguely recognizes; the human wizards had brought every Asgardian soldier to the fight and of course, he knows their names, and then there are other humans that he knows too, from the past five years and beyond. Some returned, some not. But the first group he finds that finally makes him stop is someone who has been here all this time (and been better than him with every day of it).

It's Cap. Sitting dazed and bleeding, with a shattered shield in his lap and Mjolnir at his feet, and a falcon by his left, and a wolf by his right. Dazed, bleeding, and half-dead, but none of these things have stopped Captain America before, and they don't stop him now.

Falcon in his arms, and his head on Bucky's shoulder, and Steve himself, sagged and shaking and very, very _human,_ for the first time that Thor has ever seen.

His brothers-in-arms, both dead. Now alive.

Thor's fist clenches, and this time, a spark of lightning buzzes, just in his fingertips.

_"Oh, Thoooorrrrrr~"_

Then, he spins on his heel, and storms back straight after the telepathic voice in his head that is, just now, beginning to betray the tiniest hint of fear.

The battleground is easy enough, to pick through. Smoking and scorched and a massive, raw scar hewn through the earth, but very few had actually fallen in the second and final battle, so Thor can throw himself over heaps of wreckage and paths of rubble and hunt the magic in his head. He hasn't spoken back; not yet. He can't go that far, yet. He will look for him, but he will not openly say the words, because he has spent five years _not_ saying it, and if is wrong now, if this is the God of Mischief's last trick-

Thor forges on, and if he nearly trips over his own cape, it's because Thanos had punched him so hard his head is still rattling, and that is all.

It's on the crumbling, ablaze ruins of their old headquarters that he finds him.

Loki is spreadeagled on what can only be described as a pile of rubbish. He looks peculiarly like a human lying back on vacation at the beach, except this is not a beach, it is a whole mound of trash, alien bodies, and the nearby smoldering spaceship crash, and the only ocean is the sodden puddles left over from their whole army nearly being drowned, and the only sun is the burning fires eating through the smokey sky.

Somehow, this all makes it so painfully _Loki_ that it is worse, and not better.

There is a glimmer of a glamour about Loki, because there must _always_ be a glamour, a wavering at the edges that marks him for what he is and makes Thor's heart sink. Which is actually sloppy of him, because Thor usually isn't able to see through his brother's enchantments, but he can see the edges of this one.

That is all it takes for the heat of lightning to scorch the stale air and rumble through their feet.

That is not Loki.

 _"Brother-"_ he is calling into his head, again, voice tinging deeper and heavier with some unseen strain- _"Thor, are you really not here? I thought I saw- Thor- Thor, it's going to be such a disappointment if you are dead-"_

"Loki," he rumbles, and with that, for the first time in five years, he has talked to his brother.

The telepathic voice in his head cuts off with an undignified, embarrassing sort of squeak. Loki twitches again, and more than that, the edges of his illusion just _flinch,_ in a way that is only indicative of the severest shock.

Relief shines through like a star in the Void, one tiny but unobstructed shot of light in its purest form.

And then, Thor hauls up Stormbreaker to nudge up the liar's face by the chin, and he should count himself lucky that lightning has not already struck him, then and there.

"Whoever you are, whatever trick it is you are playing, it is not funny." He presses deeper, and it has been _five years,_ so he will not yield even when a drop of blood rolls down from the caster's neck. That neck had been broken by Thanos five years ago and while he may not have done much of anything else, he has at least accepted that fact as truth. Loki is dead. He did not protect him from getting his neck snapped and that is that and there is no turning that back and the very least that he can do for him now is not accept this traitor who wears his face and dares to smile at him from it. "You have caught me on a good day, so if you lower your enchantments now and state what it is you want then perhaps I will find patience for you. But if you do not take off my brother's face-"

His breath catches.

His... brother's face...

Loki's little beaming smile is all swept away, scattered to stunned little pieces for him to blink upwards as a startled cub who's had his favorite toy ripped away. He's blinking and staring and frozen on a pillow of a dented spacepod, and then the illusion shivers and rolls apart by a sheen of emerald light only to give another Loki underneath. This one, with green alien blood smudged on his face, this one, with a vibranium spear pinned through his shoulder to spreadeagle him like a fragile butterfly for display under glass.

This one with imprints of bruises that are five years old to Thor, but perhaps only minutes old to him, already fading away on his throat, and eyes that are a solid green and no longer blossoming through with a dying red.

He _looks_ like Loki.

He _smiles_ like Loki.

He... is...

Then, Loki blinks, and his attempts at a second smile scatter again, this time into abject shock.

"Brother, did you gain weight? And- and an _eye?"_ His hand flutters up off the ground, stained with blood but only half of it is his own, skilled fingers wavering but never touching around the side of his face. "Did you grow a new eye and a fat arse?"

Thor blinks.

"And this- your hair. It is atrocious again. As is this big- clunking _thing-_ you have so graciously introduced to my chest-" His gaze darts down to the heavy Stormbreaker, and Thor realizes with a jolt that Loki would never have seen it before. "My, you have been busy, haven't you?"

Thor blinks a second time.

"...no," he says at last, a heartless stammer, "I haven't." Not unless battling Noobmaster69 can be categorized as busy, because despite five years passed there really _isn't_ all of that much for him to catch up Loki up on, Loki, who lies there half smirking and half befuddled, Loki, who is dead, who died all but _in his arms_ thrown broken and crushed on the floor, he _saw_ the light in his eyes go out, and yet-

"-the human wizard was right, then. It's been-" He chokes a little, hand brushing over his face to leave behind red smears instead of green. "-years- I-"

"The human wizard?" Thor interrupts; somehow the little details register as more important than the earth-shatteringly big one that sits right in front of his face. Stormbreaker, he drops at last, another earth-shattering impact against the already crater-strewn ground, and Loki _flinches_ and it is wrong, but he still can't quite grasp it all enough to fix it. "What does he matter-"

But Loki never stopped talking to begin with, an unsettling ramble that only made sense when Thor realizes his little brother is just as dizzy and shocked as him. "-he appears out of the Void, he says he's got one room for one more hitch-hiker- can you believe, Thor, that second-rate witch speaking that way to _me-"_

"He _did_ defeat you rather handily that one time, my brother-"

"-and he tells me it's 2023, as _if_ I keep track of the years on Midgardian scale, and then he just deposits me here-"

"It's been five years, Loki."

"-and everything was going _swimmingly_ until I had a spaceship be _dropped on my head-_ and the human sorcerer saw me stuck here, I _saw him_ look!- he sees me, then he just keeps on _walking away_ , that sniveling cur-"

"Loki-"

 _"-_ and you just look _abominable,_ Thor, really, what have you even... what?" The silvertongued sorcerer blinks once, a sprinkle of shock dusting across glazed, halfway incoherent eyes, and he finally, finally stops. He tilts his head once, still pinned down but somehow not even seeming to mind, and for a heartbeat looks so stricken and confused that Thor wants to forget _five years_ and just hug him for another ten.

"What did you say, Thor?" Loki pries again, dazed, bleeding, dumb. "Five... _years?"_ He chokes a little on the words again, then gives a half-hearted push, trying and failing rather miserably to sit up. "Since- since Ragnarok?"

"...Five years," he confirms, and then, for perhaps the very first time, it hits him, too. It has been five years. Asgard is still destroyed, and so many of their people are still dead, and he's still watched his brother die- but somehow, Loki is here. These are the things that are true: these are the only things that matter.

Thor wrenches the pitiful alien spear upwards and back, spurting blood and freeing his brother in the same swift motion. Loki cries out, torn from the sudden blow, but before he can even scrabble to get his smooth smile back Thor is down on his knees, hand to shoulder, hand to head, he hauls Loki upright to look him in his trickster eyes.

"Loki," he proclaims, straight there into his eyes. "Was this a trick? You must tell me, brother, and for once in your life, you will not lie: _was this one of your tricks?"_ He shakes him, so rough and hard for the frail little sorcerer that he just might shatter him, but his eyes are burning and his heart is swelling and he does not care. "You have faked your death before my very eyes already before- are you false or are you real?! Have you spent five years hiding, Loki, did you slither underneath some crevice and keep yourself hidden until this day- _**did I watch Thanos kill you or not, Loki?!"**_

There is another rumble; in the skies overhead, beneath their feet, deep into their ears. Lightning that burns on his hands unrestrained and unburdened for the first time in five years, and the shallowest flicker of fear in his brother's stunned eyes for the first time in it, too. Because Loki knows what he can do, he knows that he is angry, and by the light in his eyes he may not understand why but he knows the wrong words will have him snapped like a twig and fried hot as a star.

He is also dreadfully mistaken.

Loki has always been mistaken, about what Thor will do; he greatly underestimates his family's love for him, greatly overestimates his ability to slip through and away without consequence. Thor will not kill him. Five years has been enough to know that in the very depths of his heart. If Loki has tricked him with even this, then he will hate it, and part of him might hate part of him, and he might not have anything left in him that is enough to forgive it, but he will not kill him.

He's felt his little brother's death twice before.

The universe may really see fit to cast them in opposition for all the rest of eternity, but even if he has to fight Loki for all the rest of time, he will not kill him.

But, more than he's ever needed anything before, his eyes wet and his heart broken to pieces and his hands on his brother's _so very real_ shoulders trembling, he must hear Loki's answer.

For one of the first breaths of his entire life, the silvertongued snake does not have words. He sags there, boneless and shellshocked in his grip, but he stares back up to him and his eyes are a beautiful green that is not eaten away by the violent red of strangulation- and then, in yet another first, he reaches back.

Thor has already proven that this is no illusion, in touching Loki himself. But now, Loki touches him back. One solid hand grasping at his shoulder, and they're both bleeding and sprawled from the fight of their lives, and Loki still looks confused and unsure which is a true testament to just how bewilderingly _lost_ he really is, but he gives him his best mischievous smile, and says, "No tricks this time, brother."

That is it.

There is understanding, first. A bolt of truth that hits him every bit as solid and electrifying as lightning, and he feels it shock down through him from head to toe as his heart swells straight to bursting.

Then, he bursts straight into tears, and hauls Loki straight to him in the tightest hug that they have ever shared.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
